


We All Have Our Reasons

by LadyBergamot



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Death, Ficlet, M/M, One Shot, Regret, Unrequited Love, angsty, tragic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23101774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBergamot/pseuds/LadyBergamot
Summary: The Knights of Seiros surround Enbarr. The hour has come, and Hubert must fulfill his duty. Yet, there's always something that shakes one's resolve. For Hubert, well... he has his reasons.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59





	We All Have Our Reasons

**Author's Note:**

> I unfortunately pitted Ferdinand against Hubert in my Silver Snow playthrough, and now I have feelings. This short ficlet is an encapsulation of those feelings.

Reason, by definition, is a faculty born from logic.

No attachments.

No foolish sentiments.

Pure, unadulterated, weightless logic.

Hubert has lived by this fact - no, not a fact. “Fact” is too weak of a word. He had lived by this _creed_ \- a belief he staked his whole life on. As minister of imperial household, he made questionable decisions, steeled by the callousness of emotionless reason. ‘It had to be done’ was the unapologetic reprise of each and every consequence. Yet he was never short on reason.

If there was any doubt, any sense of devotion that proved to be his weakness, it was her majesty Lady Edelgard. In the five years since they began their attack on the church, she bore the burden of Fodlan’s future on her shoulders, _alone_. They were abandoned by their teacher and betrayed by their friends. Faces that meant something to him were now rendered irrelevant by cool, detached reason. Reason dictated that, for her sake, he must eliminate them. Past memories were no longer part of the question. After all, Hubert was all she had left - the boy who swore never to leave her side. That vow has not been tested, and even as the Knights of Seiros, led by their former mentor, marched towards the capital’s gates, Hubert felt nothing falter in his hardy heart. He will protect Lady Edelgard, no matter the cost.

“Hubert!” roared a daring Knight as he rode past the last of Enbarr’s barricade. The whinny of a stallion almost drowned out the clamor of metal against metal. Everywhere around them, the death rattle of the wounded rang fiercely against the thrashing pulses of their hearts. And in the wake of the ash that rose with the flames of war, Ferdinand galloped forward.

Despite the deafening noise of battle, Hubert could only let out a low, murmuring laugh. “Running into you like this, here in Enbarr…” He paused in the middle of his step, smiling without really looking at the knight he never dreamed he would fight. “I have to say, it almost feels sentimental.”

Ferdinand pulled the reins and stopped short, trotting closer to his former friend and - by the tragic turn of fate - now mortal enemy.

“Sentimental? That is unlike you Hubert,” Ferdinand parried, but his voice was low and dogged by the weight of remorse.

Dried blood and sweat crusted over the vermillion locks that was his hair, exposing slight injuries where Hubert did not expect them. It had been five years since he had last seen this bumbling fool. This misguided, treacherous, inconceivable-…

“Hubert,” Ferdinand said, snapping the retainer out of his trance, “she must leave.” His head was bowed low, eyes closed in a silence so unbecoming the once proud nobleman.

 _Hmph_ , he grunted in bemusement. “Do you really think you can make her?” he asked, eyes scanning the horizon for the diminishing number of imperial troops. Beyond them, the call of victory from the knights of Seiros encroached.

“It does not matter what I think,” Ferdinand answered resolutely. He tugged at his horse’s reigns once more, letting the stallion neigh as he raised his lance. “Those are my orders.”

“Orders?” Hubert balked. “Fascinating. Were you the same Ferdinand I knew? The same Ferdinand who hoped to _guide_ and _challenge_ the emperor herself?” He punctuated his words with a bitter scoff, curling his fingers in barely subdued disdain. “Truly, you have only learned to fillyour mouth with even more filth.”

“Your words do not wound me, Hubert,” the knight answered softly. “But I must admit,” Ferdinand murmured as he raised his bowed head, revealing eyes that were glossy with unshed tears, “your recollection of the past…” A cough stopped his words, one that Ferdinand hurriedly suppressed with the compromise of a tear, “it brings me the greatest joy.”

At that moment, Hubert had to turn away. He could not face Ferdinand - not as he was, broken and resolved as he was. There was something in the memory, and something in the tragic scene spelling their doom, which unearthed thoughts he thought he had buried long ago.

 _‘I believe your father had something he was trying to protect…’_ That old man, Professor Hanneman once spoke those words. _‘You have clearly chosen your own path, Hubert.’_

Their eyes - fiery gold against limpid green - locked at his recollection of those words.

_‘Continue protecting what you wish to protect…’_

‘My father had his reasons,’ Hubert thought to himself, speaking to the ghost of Hanneman now that he had his answer. ‘As I have mine.’

Memories of old faces, of golden halls, and long nights at feasts in Garreg Mach had drowned out the bellowing neigh of Ferdinand’s horse, signaling his approach. Of course he _would_ recall so many things at such a pivotal moment. The smile on Lady Edelgard’s face when she happily ‘played’ at school, the professor’s own pride once they had won the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion, and Ferdinand… Ferdinand…

Hubert readied his defensive stance, squaring his knees and raising his arms as he drew energy for the attack. As warmth trickled down from the tips of his fingers, he steadied his breath and filled his lungs with the hot air around him. Enbarr was as warm as he remembered those school days were. Down by the Cathedral well, when secrets were spoken close to the Goddess Tower, Hubert shared whispers that reason should never have allowed.

 _“I do not understand your predilection for coffee,”_ Ferdinand had teased him once after training. They had just finished sparring, as recommended by the professor by way of ‘team building exercise.’

Hubert could picture himself then, leaning against the well for support as he sat on the ground from exhaustion. Sweat had dripped down from his brow and made the tightness of his uniform collar absolutely unbearable. _“It is not only the taste, but the efficiency. I cannot sit idly by sipping tea while Lady Edelgard works for the fate of the Empire.”_

Like it was yesterday, Hubert could see Ferdinand shake his head from the corner of his eye.

_“I simply cannot abide by your devotion to Edelgard.”_

_“A fool like you would never understand.”_

The two young men rose. Ferdinand hastily drew the bucket from the well and splashed himself, quite messily (to Hubert’s dismay).

_“Maybe so, but I believe a leader like Edelgard does not need yet another devoted servant. What she needs is a rival - an equal who can steer her towards the correct path.”_

_“And_ you _are that rival?”_

The question was rhetorical. It was Hubert’s attempt at humor all the while belittling Ferdinand for his impertinence.

But, standing on the steps leading to the Royal Palace Gates, Hubert could not help but bite his tongue at the bitter irony that he now faced.

Ferdinand was dashing towards him, spear in hand. They were now locked in an ill-fated battle, one between servant and usurper.

 _“Perhaps,”_ Ferdinand had readily answered. _“Perhaps not.”_ The young man pushed the bucket back to Hubert, surprising his fellow classmate with the offer. _“But come on, you must have a drink. A retainer cannot fulfill his duty if he is parched and weak from training!”_

Inwardly, Hubert smiled in remembering the bounce in Ferdinand’s voice - one that was gone and lost to the heavy tenor of their present selves. But more than that, he relished in the memory of a touch. Or no… less than that: a _ghost_ of a touch. Back then, Hubert tried to grab the bucket, but their fingers had brushed past each other. It was a touch neither acknowledged and awkwardly glossed in their haphazard attempts to continue the conversation, stilted as it was with their newfound tension.

‘So you have become that rival, Ferdinand,’ Hubert thought to himself. The dark mage closed his eyes and smiled. ‘The rival to challenge and guide Lady Edelgard… it was impossible, after all…’

Ferdinand’s battle cry cut his sentimental reveries short, but Hubert did not open his eyes. Instead, he held his head high, raising up his arms higher as he gathered a dark cloud of energy to surround him. The memories that flashed in his mind raced to a dizzying blur. Their school days as students, most of all of Ferdinand…

Ferdinand pushing an extra plate of dinner so he might gain strength.

Ferdinand handing him a towel after training.

Ferdinand knocking on his door late at night with ‘interesting information’ from a tome he had just discovered in the library.

Ferdinand smiling.

Ferdinand laughing.

Hubert opened his eyes and, with a smile, saw the tears that streamed with a glimmer on Ferdinand’s contorted features. He barely noticed the blood dripping from his own chest, or the sharp, wrenching pain as the weapon struck his heart.

Hubert had hesitated. He had missed.

“HUBERT! NO!”

All he could hear was the sound of his body falling with a heavy thud on the ground.

“Hubert! Why?!”

His vision was already failing him. All he could see was the mass of gray, tinged with red, that formed the sky like a dome above him. His limbs started to feel cold, and even the simple act of breathing hurt. It hurt in ways he never thought it could.

“Answer me!” Ferdinand had grabbed hold of his hand, it seemed. Hubert could barely tell, after all. Almost all feeling in his hand was withering away. “I threw it so you could -… It was a move I had always used! You should have-…” The words of self-protest rushed out of him, stopping only with the choked-up sobs that forced themselves out amidst his tears. “Hubert…” The once proud heir to House Aegir held Hubert’s hand with a firm yet tender grip, hoping against hope that - through the leather fabric of his glove - he could share once more in the warm touch they never had.

“Hubert… Hubert….”

Ferdinand could only utter the name over and over, rocking his limp body back and forth as he pressed his sweat-dampened head against his. “I-… I’ve always-…”

Hubert’s frail shoulders shook with the sound of hoarse laughter. “You had your orders didn’t you?” But the smile vanished as quickly as it came. He did his best to crane his neck past Ferdinand’s shoulder. “Her majesty… Lady Edelgard she-…”

Ferdinand's gaze followed the direction of his hand pointing towards the palace.

“It’s okay Hubert,” Ferdinand whimpered against his unbidden stream of tears. “She’ll be okay.” But the reassurances were not enough to stymy the swelling of guilt, terror, and horror that squeezed at his heart. Ferdinand could only hold Hubert's limp body tighter, pressing him against his chest. "Hubert..." a sniffle punctuated his plea, "why didn't you dodge my attack? You know that move so well... You could have-..."

But once again, his words failed to fight against his newfound grief. All he could do was shake and sob as the warmth faded from his friend. 

Hubert knew that Ferdinand's reassurances were a lie. With his dying breath, he sighed, offering one last smile. He wasn’t quite sure why he felt happy in that moment, or why he found solace in the false promises of a knight following his orders.

“I suppose,” Hubert answered as he coughed up blood, “I have my reasons.”


End file.
